


Withdrawal

by OldWomanJosie



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-28
Updated: 2014-10-28
Packaged: 2018-02-22 23:26:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2525579
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldWomanJosie/pseuds/OldWomanJosie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Without the Drift, most pilots can get by.  However, there are rare cases in which the opposite occurs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Withdrawal

The Drift. One of the greatest advances to come out of the Kaiju War and the Jaeger Program. The linking and melding of two minds, memories, and souls. It’s a feeling, a bond, like nothing else in the world. But after the kaiju were defeated, there was no need for the Drift anymore. Without the Drift, most pilots can get by. They experience a kind of ghost drift, staying connected with one another well past the end of the Drift. However, there are rare cases in which the opposite occurs. When not in the Drift, their link with one another is so completely severed that it sends them into withdrawal. It’s extremely rare, and in some cases so severe that one or more partners are driven insane. Insomnia, listlessness, lack of appetite, and a deep sense of loneliness that nothing can heal.

*~*

Raleigh Becket tossed and turned in his small bed, unable to get comfortable. It seemed that there was no way he could lie that would let him rest. With a frustrated sigh he threw his pillow against the wall and watched it fall to the floor with little interest in retrieving it. 

After a minute he did get up, but not to retrieve his lost pillow. Raleigh instead marched across the hall to knock urgently on Mako’s door. He didn’t even get two raps in before his copilot pulled the door open. Mako’s hair was mussed as if she’d been sleeping, but the rings under her eyes told another story. “You too?” she asked in response to his haggard appearance.

Raleigh nodded. He felt lost, like he couldn’t breathe. There was an empty space in his head where Mako used to be that itched in a way he couldn’t touch. He stepped forward and pressed his forehead against hers, trying to feel something, anything. Her hands closed over his like a vise, pulling them together until it gave them both a headache. They stayed that way for long minutes, reaching out into the darkness for each other.

Finally Mako broke away with a sigh that sounded like loss. It was no use, there was not even a trace of the connection that they had shared in the Drift. “Come in,” she invited, leading the way into her room. She sat down on the bed but Raleigh couldn’t sit still. He paced her floor like a man possessed, holding his head in his hands.

"Why isn’t it working? Why can’t I feel you? Yancy and I would ghost drift all the time, I thought it happened to everyone."

"Apparently not." She patted the bed beside her and he threw himself down with a huff. Mako put her arm around him and rested her head on his shoulder. "I miss you," she said quietly.

Raleigh didn’t even bother making a joke about not having gone anywhere. He knew what she meant. His thoughts were empty and silent without her counterpoint. They clanged around in his head and made far more noise than he could bear.

Mako grabbed her iPod from the bedside table and offered him one earbud silently. They lay down together, sharing body heat and music, the only bonds they seemed to share anymore.


End file.
